Say Her Name: Black Women's Police Violence

Overview

This talk examines how Black women's experiences with police violence remain invisible due to narrow framing of social justice issues, introducing intersectionality as a framework to address overlapping forms of discrimination and advocating for recognition through the Say Her Name campaign.

The Recognition Exercise

• Speaker asks audience to stand, then sit when hearing unfamiliar names
• First group: Eric Garner, Mike Brown, Tamir Rice, Freddie Gray—most people remain standing
• Second group: Michelle Cusseaux, Tanisha Anderson, Aura Rosser, Meagan Hockaday—only four people remain standing
• Both groups are Black Americans killed by police in past 2.5 years
• Only difference between groups: gender (first group male, second female)
• Pattern repeats across diverse audiences including civil rights groups, professors, even progressive Congress members
• Reveals extremely low awareness of police violence against Black women

Framing and Social Awareness

• Communications experts note facts don't register without appropriate frames for understanding
• Black women's names slip through consciousness because no frames exist to see, remember, or hold them
• Without proper frames, reporters don't lead stories, policymakers don't consider issues, politicians don't address concerns
• Trickle-down approach to social justice often fails—assuming racial justice plus gender justice automatically includes Black women
• Many fall through movement cracks without frameworks showing how problems affect all targeted group members

Intersectionality: Origins and Purpose

• Term created to address overlapping social justice problems like racism and sexism
• Concept developed to show how discrimination creates multiple levels of social injustice
• Black women and other marginalized people face unique challenges at intersections of identities
• Framework applies beyond race/gender to heterosexism, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism
• Raises awareness about how marginalized people live and die

Emma DeGraffenreid Case Study

• African-American woman, working wife and mother seeking employment at car manufacturing plant
• Applied for job, wasn't hired, believed discrimination was because she was Black woman
• Judge dismissed her race and gender discrimination claim
• Employer argued they hired African-Americans (men for industrial/maintenance jobs) and women (white women for secretarial/front-office work)
• Court refused to let Emma combine race and gender claims together
• Judge feared allowing combined claim would give "preferential treatment" (two swings at bat vs. one)

• Court rejected Emma's case entirely rather than broadening frame to include Black women's experience
• Law's refusal to protect those whose experiences don't match either single category alone

The Intersection Analogy

• Roads represent workforce structured by race and gender
• Traffic represents hiring policies and practices flowing through those roads
• Black women positioned precisely where roads overlap, experiencing simultaneous race and gender discrimination
• Law acts like ambulance treating only single-road injuries, not intersection injuries
• Analogy clarifies how multiple forces impact individuals at crossroads of identities

Police Violence Against Black Women

• Black women face high levels of police violence, yet deaths generate little media attention
• Victims range from seven-year-old girls to 95-year-old great-grandmothers
• Killed in homes (living rooms, bedrooms), cars, streets, in front of family
• Methods include shooting, stomping, suffocation, manhandling, tasering
• Incidents occur during routine activities: shopping, driving, calling for help, mental health crises, domestic disturbances
• Even killed while homeless, talking on phone, making U-turn near White House with infant in car
• Lost lives don't generate same outcry as Black men killed by police

Say Her Name Campaign

• African-American Policy Forum launched campaign in 2014
• Demands saying women's names at rallies, protests, conferences, anywhere state violence against Black bodies discussed
• Requires more than name-saying: bearing witness to painful realities of everyday violence and humiliation
• Campaign includes roll call of names spoken aloud collectively and disorderly
• Creates cacophony to hold women up, bring them into light, sit with their stories
• Names include: Aiyana Stanley Jones, Janisha Fonville, Kathryn Johnston, Kayla Moore, Michelle Cusseaux, Rekia Boyd, Shelly Frey, Yvette Smith

Key Terms & Definitions

• Intersectionality: Framework showing how social justice problems like racism and sexism overlap, creating multiple levels of injustice for those at intersections
• Framing: Mental structures determining what facts people can see, remember, and incorporate into understanding of problems
• Trickle-down social justice: Assumption that addressing broad categories (race issues, gender issues) automatically helps all subgroups without specific attention

Action Items / Next Steps

• Move from mourning and grief to action and transformation
• Bear witness to often-painful realities society prefers not confronting
• Collectively say names of Black women killed by police violence
• Recognize that inability to see problem prevents fixing problem
• Join Say Her Name campaign efforts at local and national levels